Saturday, September 15, 2001

Candy Candy Manga

Thundersenshi's Description:
Once upon a time, there was a little orphan girl crying her heart out on a meadowy hill. It was during this time that she had met her prince--a handsome young boy who approached her, and told her gently to dry her tears and smile instead. The little girl never forgot that memory closest to her heart. Not even after several years later when she travels the path of self-discovery...believing that someday, she will meet her prince again and find true happiness once and for all.

This is the story of Candy White; her life, her loves and her sorrows.

A bittersweet read. >>> by thundersenshi
Reading CC is just like watching a good soap opera, or those local telenovelas that are so popular here...umm, okay, maybe I shouldn't have said that. But in any case, I guess what I was trying to say is that CC's particularly heavy on drama and romance. I remember watching its anime version first, but that was really a long time ago, when I was still in my preschool days. It was several years later when I remembered it again and began searching for the manga. While I was preparing to take a trip down memory lane, I was expecting to read something sickeningly mushy and overly dramatic even before I laid my hands on the manga. I didn't think about it that way years ago, but I assumed that my tastes were different back then, and perhaps the years clouded the memories so that I could only recall that I liked it. Not that this fact bothered me--I was just feeling nostalgic and I wanted to have a good, comfortable laugh at what I absolutely LOVED back then. And being the kid I was when I had first seen CC, it wouldn't have surprised me if I really liked the mushy stuff. Then I found out, as I began reading the first volume--it wasn't as bad as I expected. Of course the mush was there--can't discount it no more than the angst. Considering the fact that this is is a really old series, though, it's not bad. I mean it couldn't have been, not when I started to read it continuously. CC's sentimental value perhaps contributed a lot to my voracious reading of its manga, but it couldn't have been that alone. It's actually a pretty good and involving story of romance and tragedy.

Learning that it was created in the 1975 did not come as a surprise to me. The 70s touch was there, not only in the way it was drawn. It was apparent in the dramatic turns of the story, and the flair for angst, which was so popular with Japanese animanga of those times. Those were the days was when happy endings, predictable love triangles and whatnot were known only to Disney movies, and almost unheard of in Japanese animations. I may not have been born in the 70s, but I have shed enough quarts of tears for the likes of Astroboy reruns (among many other titles which I cannot possibly remember) to know that any anime/manga created/written in the 70s and beyond is almost devoid of happy resolutions.

CC is no different from this lot of tear-jerkers. I'm not saying that CC's main character was denied her happiness 'til the end, though...I'm not supposed to give spoilers. It's all up to you to find out. But ask me if I'll spend my money on this, the answer is a definite, resounding YES. It may not be the best series ever; it's not even spared from some typicalities of old anime (i.e. blonde heroines loved by most of the male population in the vicinity), but it will be a beautiful addition to any manga collection there is.